The Fi'ec Hiiih School.
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��attempt to provide? It does provide come to mean a synonym for a train- more in almost every case where it ing that provides means for people
��provides anything. The result is the free high school, an institution in which are taught the elements of alge- bra and geometry, the abstracts of several sciences, the grammar of two
��to live without labor. It is with them a sort of magic oil, which, if poured into people's heads for a cer- tain number of years, will enable them during the remainder of their
��or three languages, and prob.ably an lives to keep their hands white, and
��outline of history, mental and moral philosophy, and civil government. All this is furnished without money and without price to all who will come and partake. Why should the public purse undertake to furnish this extra educa-
��at the same time to enjoy daint}' food and fine clothes. What wonder, when fountains of this potent fluid are dis- tributed at public expense all over the land, that manual labor is de- spised.^ The common people, who
��tion any more than it should provide wish to advance the fortunes of their
��free dinners or decent tenement homes for the poor? It must be that the education is considered of great value.
Some years ago I heard an obser- vant elderly lady say that the free high school was destined to be the ruin of this country. I attributed her remark, which shocked me as having the spirit of the eighteenth century, to the prejudices and con- servatism of one who had no sym- pathy with the masses. In fact, I was so indignant about it that I be- gan observations to disprove her statement. While I am still far from acknowledging its truth, my enthusiasm about the high school has become modified so much that it ap- pears no longer an unmixed blessing, but an institution quite unadapted to the needs of the country.
Why is it that there is such a con- stant cry about the lack of skilled mechanics, artisans, and domestic servants? Why is it that there is such a surplus of cheap professional men, clerks, and copyists? It is be- cause education with the lower classes (I use the terra for convenience) has
��children, have no comprehension of the satisfaction of a cultivated mind, nor can they understand that mental labor is of the severest and most tax- ing kind. But they do believe that if they surrender the entire youth of their children to the public schools, that the schools, since they incapaci- tate their pupils for manual labor, ought to teach them to get a living by their wits.
Let us take some ever3'-day exam- ples. I know a respectable Irishman, a laborer. His wife, before her mar- riage, "worked out." She now works in her own family. They live in a town which for many 3'ears has boasted a complete public-school sys- tem. Their eight children enjoy its benefits. The parents have become thoroughly imbued with the American idea that their children must have a better opportunity than themselves. The eldest daughter has just grad- uated from the high school. I saw the hack sweep down the alley in which they live, and convey her in muslin robes and satin ribbons from a tenement in whose parlor the cook- stove and the crib are the most strik-
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